Trips Formation – Quick Slant – Wheel Route

Play designed to be a quick hitter getting the ball into the hands of your best athlete. However, if the defense starts to play tighter, you can look for the 2 deep options.

Setup: Trips Left – Wide, Slot, SlotRead: Short to Deep

Wide Receiver – Quick Slant

Center – Corner Route (Weak Side)

Slot Receiver – Wheel

Inside Slot – Hook

Description:

The quarterback is looking for the wide receiver on the quick slant coming underneath the two slot receivers who are running a wheel route and 6 yard hook. If the quick slant is covered, the next look is the center on the corner route.

After that, the quarterback should look deep on the other side for the slot receiver running a wheel route up the sideline, the inside slot receiver running the hook is the outlet on the play. This receiver should slide left or right to find an open area of the field. If defense is playing man, once the quarterback gets to the end of the progression, the Slot Hook Receiver will need to move to get open.

The key on the wheel route is for your receiver to get lazy. What I mean here is that sometimes the receiver will run the route and take a couple steps toward the sideline then break up field. The receiver needs to sell that the route is an out and that’s it. Also, pushing the wheel route toward the sideline makes the timing of the route better for the quarterback progression on the play. If the receiver breaks too soon down field, the QB may still be look for the Center on the corner route on the opposite side. By the time the QB looks for the wheel route, the receiver may be covered or out of range of the QB’s arm.

Play Variation: You can flip the routes of the slot receivers and have the inside receiver run the wheel route. However, the main goal of this play is get the ball into the hands of one your play makers on the quick slant. Having too much action by the other receivers may clog up the area as the inside slot runs underneath the outside slot.

Additional Trips Play: Check out this other trips play. It’s mainly a short yardage grind play, but has two options for the deep throws should the defense go to sleep.